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Russia and China recently amended their constitution to ensure their respective leaders can stay in power permanently. Having some unchangeable bedrock in a country seems very valuable as we are all vulnerable to tyrants at some point in history.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the Founding Fathers pictured the government as being democrats and republicans versus problems, not democrats versus republicans.
They didn't even intend for a party system to take hold
I don't think it's a good article though. In particular, I don't think it coheres. It's about how the modern Constitution has become "un-amendable", but it spends a big chunk of the middle of the piece demonstrating the Constitution was never really all that amendable: successful amendments are extraordinarily rare, especially when they're about big-ticket issues. Our biggest structural changes occurred after an enormous civil war.
There's a sort of obvious framing to the piece that the Constitution should be more fluid and easy to amend. I think 2022 is a very weird time to prioritize that. I'm not a doomer about US politics, but they're not in a very good state right now. Lepore talks about national abortion, immigration, and firearms policy and how they'd be impacted by a more readily-amended Constitution, but I think she should take a wider view and look at things like how speech and free association would be impacted.
I'm a liberal, in a cohort of people this article portrays as atypically open to changing the Constitution, and I think the rigidity of the Constitution is probably it's greatest strength.
What are the amendements that they want to pass, but cannot?
excite1997 0 minutes ago | unvote | parent | next [–]
This thread is likely gonna be a minefield and get canned, but the article takes a swing at the 2nd Amendment, for example, pretending to be impartial but calling it a "reinterpretation".
Listening to the decision is fun (Heller 2008).
Justice Antonin Scalia reads Heller(2008)[1] for the majority:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/oyez.case-media.ogg/case_data/2007/... (Justice Breyer also reads the dissent)
Russia and China recently amended their constitution to ensure their respective leaders can stay in power permanently. Having some unchangeable bedrock in a country seems very valuable as we are all vulnerable to tyrants at some point in history.
I propose a constitutional amendment to ban political parties. ;) But seriously, that would be interesting. Our Founding Fathers never intended there to be this entrenchment of two parties. It would make polarization harder because, well... what are the sides? It would also force greater civic participation to know what candidates actually stand for, and not just at the federal level.
"Seventy-two per cent of Republicans think that the Constitution is basically fine as is; seventy-two per cent of Democrats disagree." Of course this has nothing to do the actual Constitution. It's a statement about each party's (dis)satisfaction with the current success of their party. The optimist in me wants to believe that even in this polarized culture politicians could compromise and find a middle ground on man…
> even in this polarized culture politicians could compromise Not when refusing to compromise is your parties main platform.
Unfortunately the left has won in this regard. The left moves so hard and fast to the left that even the right can no longer "refuse to compromise." If they don't, they are bigots at worst and uncultured, out of touch imbeciles at best.
"Seventy-two per cent of Republicans think that the Constitution is basically fine as is; seventy-two per cent of Democrats disagree." Of course this has nothing to do the actual Constitution. It's a statement about each party's (dis)satisfaction with the current success of their party. The optimist in me wants to believe that even in this polarized culture politicians could compromise and find a middle ground on man…
> even in this polarized culture politicians could compromise Not when refusing to compromise is your parties main platform.
This seems like a scathing indictment, but the point of a political party is to advance an ideological agenda. "Compromise" on bureaucratic issues is essential and acceptable, but you rarely hear about that. There are all sorts of issues that Republicans and Democrats refuse to compromise on - isn't that why people have divided themselves along these lines in the first place?
"Seventy-two per cent of Republicans think that the Constitution is basically fine as is; seventy-two per cent of Democrats disagree." Of course this has nothing to do the actual Constitution. It's a statement about each party's (dis)satisfaction with the current success of their party. The optimist in me wants to believe that even in this polarized culture politicians could compromise and find a middle ground on man…
I propose a constitutional amendment to ban political parties. ;) But seriously, that would be interesting. Our Founding Fathers never intended there to be this entrenchment of two parties. It would make polarization harder because, well... what are the sides? It would also force greater civic participation to know what candidates actually stand for, and not just at the federal level.